[Swiftwater Gazette] Freedom

[Brad Haslett]

People are waking up, a bit late as you say (see attached article from
Forbes).  I just hope we can put the brakes on some if not most of
this spending before it is too late.  I fault Bush 43 for starting us
down this path and now these guys want to increase spending by some
unknown multiple.  You said in an earlier post that people flipping
hamburgers at McDonalds would be making $50,000 per year, and you are
correct. The people buying those burgers will be carrying three
different types of $100 bills in their pocket - old, new and newest
(this is not theory, I used to have to do that in Brazil just to buy
beer on the sidewalk a few years ago). We've spent over $400,000 per
person displaced by Katrina and still nothing has been rebuilt. Now,
under new management, we're going to solve all the social ills just
like The One did with public housing in Chicago.  Talk about an
opportunity for graft!

If you have the time to read it, I included some satire about
Buckley's father after the Forbes article.

Brad

Neither Moderate Nor Centrist
Peter Robinson, 03.06.09, 12:00 AM ET

"To see what is in front of one's nose," George Orwell famously
asserted, "needs a constant struggle."

Congratulations this week to three journalists who have finally taken
up that constant struggle: Christopher Buckley, David Gergen and David
Brooks. All three used to insist that Obama was some species of
centrist or moderate. Now that Obama has proposed the most massive
expansion of government in the history of the republic, each has
recognized that just conceivably he might have been mistaken.

A humorist--and, I should disclose, an old friend--Christopher Buckley
exercised his acute comic sense during the presidential campaign,
judging John McCain so thoroughly risible that the nation could hardly
do worse by electing Barack Obama. Now Buckley has developed a sense
of the tragic. In electing Obama, he admits, we may indeed have done
worse--a lot worse.

"The strange thing," Buckley wrote last week after listening to Obama
address Congress, "is that one feels almost unpatriotic, entertaining
negative thoughts about Mr. Obama's grand plan. ... One thing is
certain, however: Government is getting bigger and will stay bigger.
Just remember ... that a government that is big enough to give you
everything you want is also big enough to take it all away."

"Just remember"? Coming from someone who just remembered, the
exhortation might strike a lot of people as rich. But never mind.

Now a commentator for CNN, David Gergen served in a number of
administrations, first working in the White House all the way back in
the 1970s. To the extent that he possesses any coherent ideological
outlook--a fine question to ask of someone who took jobs from both
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton--Gergen seems to share Alexander
Hamilton's view that the federal government requires, as Hamilton
expressed it, "energy in the executive."

During the campaign, Gergen praised Obama as a man of action. Now
Gergen argues that Obama is displaying a little too much action.

"We are in the midst of a global crisis ... that demands intense focus
and daily leadership by the president ...," Gergen wrote this past
week. "But ... [Obama's] ... ambition for reforms in other areas do
not allow him to give the economy his full attention." The financial
industry is reeling, Gergen asserted, "because there is still no
clearcut set of policies about how the government will rescue banks."
And "it is stunning that [Treasury] Secretary Tim Geithner does not
yet have a deputy secretary or any undersecretaries named, much less
on the job."

Energy in the executive is one matter. Zealotry in the executive is another.

Two personalities inhabit New York Times columnist David Brooks, who,
like Christopher Buckley, is a friend. One personality is that of the
idealist. On Inauguration Day, the idealist in Brooks claimed that
Barack Obama was "a pragmatist, an empiricist" who intended "to
realize the end-of-ideology politics. ..." The other personality
inhabiting Brooks is that of the realist. It takes a lot to rouse the
realist. Trillions of dollars, in fact.

"There is evidence," Brooks wrote last week about Obama's $3.6
trillion budget, "of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor.
... We end up with deficits that are $1 trillion a year and stretch as
far as the eye can see. ... [F]ederal spending as a share of GDP is
zooming from its modern norm of 20% to an unacknowledged level
somewhere far beyond

"Those of us who consider ourselves moderates--moderate-conservative,
in my case--are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is
not who we thought he was."

A couple of implications here are worth noting. The first is that a
deep, recurring pattern of American life has asserted itself yet
again: the cluelessness of the elite.

Buckley, Gergen and Brooks all attended expensive private
universities, then spent their careers moving among the wealthy and
powerful who inhabit the seaboard corridor running from Washington to
Boston. If any of the three strolled uninvited into a cocktail party
in Georgetown, Cambridge or New Haven, the hostess would emit yelps of
delight. Yet all three originally got Obama wrong.

Contrast Buckley, Gergen and Brooks with, let us say, Rush Limbaugh,
whose appearance at any chic cocktail party would cause the hostess to
faint dead away, or with Thomas Sowell, who occupies probably the most
unfashionable position in the country, that of a black conservative.

Limbaugh and Sowell both got Obama right from the very get-go. "Just
what evidence do you have," Sowell replied when I asked, shortly
before the election, whether he considered Obama a centrist, "that
he's anything but a hard-left ideologue?"

The elite journalists, I repeat, got Obama wrong. The troglodytes got
him right. As our national drama continues to unfold, bear that in
mind.

The second implication? That there remains at least a small chance
Congress will refuse to enact Obama's budget. In the House of
Representatives, Democrats hold a majority of 79 seats. Will enough
voters in enough Democratic districts become so disenchanted with
Obama that they force 40 House Democrats to vote against the
president's budget?

If even Christopher Buckley, David Gergen and David Brooks can at last
see what is in front of their noses, one may hope.

Peter Robinson, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at
Stanford University and contributor to RobinsonandLong.com, writes a
weekly column for Forbes.

---------------------
---------------------

I Daresay It Is Time We Deal With the Mutineers Aboard the S.S. Conservatism

[ed. note: a number of you have written requesting I invite T.
Coddington Van Voorhees VII back for another analysis of the sad state
of the conservative movement. After some cajoling and a bottle of
VSOP, he agreed.]

T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII
Editor, the National Topsider
Membership Chairman, The Newport Club

Much has been written about the fate of the conservative movement in
the months since last I corresponded with you. I won't belabor the
barrels of ink expended in the printing of its obituary, nor will I
bore you with further reading of its entrails. Suffice it to say the
grand old ship is in the doldrums, adrift in the electoral currents,
with nary a harbor on the horizon. But it is time we leave such map
room mopery aside and navigate a bold new course for the conservative
armada. One needn't have a 400-year old heirloom scrimshaw sextant for
this task; but, fortunately, I do.

It's quite a handsome instrument, I might add, skillfully hewn from
North Atlantic whalebone by some long forgotten crewman on De Gouden
Hoer, the sleek Dutch galleon that once transported great- great-
great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great-
great-grandfather Marinus Van Voorhees to the New World, safe beyond
the reach of the angry Amsterdam mobs who mistakenly blamed him for
some unpleasant business there involving tulip futures. According to
family legend grandpapa Marinus won it in a high stakes high seas game
of Kaiserspiel, trumping that unlucky crewman's queen-high flush with
his trusty pearl handled rapier. Although it doomed the crewman to a
tragic fate as shark chum in the Gulf Stream, his beautifully crafted
sextant has since proven a treasured family keepsake -- passed down
from generation to generation of Van Voorheeses as we migrated
westward with the great American expansion; from Newport to Greenwich
to Manhattan, and finally back east again to the summer compound in
Montauk.

Today the Van Voorhees family sextant rests proudly atop my private
shipboard desk. I'm admiring it now; there it sits, in its protective
crystal bell jar, alongside Marinus' rapier, both still bearing the
sanguinary patina of their provenance. They were, of course, the
deathbed bequest of my visionary father, T.C. Van Voorhees VI, rakish
founder of the National Topsider and the modern conservative movement.
Last year, after our final emotional handshake, he looked at me with
those anxious, fading eyes, and said:

    "the helm awaits, my lad; I trust you will steer it well. And, it
appears, I have soiled myself."

With that, old Dad slipped off this mortal coil. A sad moment, to be
sure, but I took comfort in the stoic grace with which he finally
relinquished control of both the conservative movement and his bowels.
His beloved sextant is a constant reminder of my grave responsibility
as conservatism's new helmsman, and a testament to the timeless truth
that fate favors the bold - and the well-bred.

This was, as you know, the theme of the National Topsider's exclusive
January conference at the private Breakers Club in Nassau where I
hosted a veritable murderer's row of top tory thinkers to diagnose the
troubles with conservatism. Dame Peggy Noonan was there, of course,
along with Kathleen Parker, Douglas Kmiec, and those two mighty Davids
of conservative intellect, Brooks and Frum. But enough of the
namedropping. The order of the day, after mixed badminton doubles, was
to formulate an Rx for our ailing patient. In this regard we were in
surprising accord: in order to survive, conservativism simply must
start appealing to a better class of people. The sad fact of the
matter, as we noted, is that one no longer finds admitted
conservatives in any of America's prestige zip codes nor the faculty
redoubts of her selective academies. During our Bahamian summit many
gambits were proposed to win back America's elite electoral precincts
from the left; sponsoring various hip hop colloquia at the better
Ivies, supporting integration of gays into Nascar, endorsing state
ownership of the means of production. Rod Dreher, whose sensational
exegesis "Crunchy Cons" sold well over 200 copies last year,
recommended a full embrace of the environmental movement, which as I
understand is quite the rage among youthful voters and the
trendsetting thespians of Hollywood. Good and bold ideas all, and
necessary steps to get the movement started again. But there remains a
daunting obstacle - namely, the benighted rubes who constitute so much
of our so-called "base," and whose existence make it nigh on
impossible to recruit their social betters.

That conundrum of electoral calculus was the topic of much discussion
two weeks ago, when my Nassau confreres and I were summoned to the
White House for an intimate repast with the new President and his
inner circle. Mr. Obama was radiant as ever, still basking in the
afterglow of his historic victory. I admit to a recent wobble or two
in my faith in him, as the severe beatings suffered by my various
family trusts have necessitated some unanticipated cutbacks in my
household staff. But that easy, commanding elegance was a bracing
reminder of why I endorsed Mr. Obama as the true conservative
presidential choice. After dessert (black walnut dacquoise with
sections of quince) we retired to the Blue Room where chief of staff
Rahm Emanuel entertained us with some droll tales of his days as
terpsichorean with the Mossad ballet auxiliary, even treating us to a
few thrilling, if f-bomb laced, arabesques. He was followed by Vice
President Joe Biden, who put on a fine display of his famed wit and
penchant for unpredictable cerebral infarctions. Amid the sparkling
bonhomie the President solicited our views on the causes of -- and
solutions to -- conservatism's sad state. Seizing the opportunity for
a tete-a-tete with the world's most powerful, popular, and beautiful
man, I explained the tragic plague of rubes who stand athwart our
modernization program.

"Why not just drive them out?" asked the President, elegantly French
inhaling his Marlboro Light 100. "Under the old bus, so to speak."

"Alas, were it so easy," interrupted Brooks, in a clumsy attempt to
draw Mr. Obama's attentions from me like some cocquettish debutante.
Parker, Noonan and Frum were too lost in orgasmic schoolgirl giggling
to offer anything more substantive. I ignored their embarrasing faux
pas and pressed on with my thesis.

"We've tried, Mr. President," I explained. "But there are unsavory
elements within the party who keep bringing them back in."

My reference, obviously, was to the self-styled luminaries of
"populism" who hang like a millstone around the Republican neck -- the
Sarah Palins, the Plumbing Joes, the Bobby Jindals, the Rush
Limbaughs, the motley middlebrow state college pretenders to the
conservative throne. A shared contempt for these arriviste oafs unites
the Nassau summitteers perhaps even more than our shared fondness for
a snifter of well-behaved armagnac VSOP. I have made no secret of my
feelings about la Palin and her grim brood of ill-mannered
snowbillies, as well that horrid toilet tinkerer from Toledo whose
fifteen minutes have somehow refused to expire. The recent emergence
of Bobby Jindal and Rush Limbaugh in the intraparty maelstrom yet
affords fresh opportunities for conservative dismality.

As for this Jindal fellow, who quite knows what to think? In the more
colorful days of my youth I took quite a shine to the mystics of the
East Indies, not to mention that culture's astonishingly encyclopedic
catalogues of sexual positions. As teenagers in 1968, my chalet mate
Kloonkie Von Wallensheim and I took a sabbatical from our studies at
Swiss finishing school for a stint at a Punjabi ashram, to learn
Accidental Transgression or similar hippie era hooey from Yogi Rama
Booboo, or somesuch fakir who now fades from memory; although, I
recall now in my maturity that was mostly a flimsy excuse we concocted
to our manservants for the chance to indulge in hallucinogenic benders
with John, Paul, George and Ringo. As a result I have a special
fondness for the subcontinent, and so was understandably intrigued
when I first heard about this young Hindu chap on the hustings in
Louisiana. It has long been my conviction that conservatives need to
reach out to the duskier demographics, and so I was eager to see how
he incorporated sitars and the Bhaghavad Gita into his State of the
Union response. But then I heard the fellow open his mouth and let
forth a non-stop torrent of the very same tired, twangy trailer park
taxophobia that placed the GOP into its current predicament; y'all
this, and it's yore munny that, more redolent of some ghastly
hillbilly bar-bee-cue stewpot than the exotically intoxicating curries
and saffrons I was led to expect. Where were the hypnotic entreaties
to Krishna? Shiva? Ganesh? The appeals to Universal consciousness and
the Bramin castes? Nowhere, I'm afraid, just the same old hackneyed
hayseed Hayekian Hee Haw delivered by a man who obviously hasn't the
slightest clue how to leverage a pigmentation advantage. The deluded
lad has ignited his birthright on a pyre, sent it down the Ganges, and
reincarnated himself as just another Bayou Babbitt. One need only look
at the blandly average ethnic composition of his audiences to realize
that, as an effective parry to the Democrats' brilliant racial
strategems, Mr. Jindal is most certainly a bust.

Where Jindal offers mere disappointment, the crystal set "dee jay"
buffoon Rush Limbaugh by contrast offers a horrifying one-stop object
lesson in all that ails Republicanism: the embarrassing bombast and
boosterism, the cheap anti-intellectual sophistry, the complete
failure to understand his place. For twenty years he has served up his
sad stew of red meat blandishments and powdered itch medications to a
declasse horde of gun-totin' Ozark lumpenproles and exurban strip mall
burghers, a blithering baritone soundtrack for legions of hinterland
idiots aimlessly wandering from one Wal-Mart to the next in their
blood curdling sport utility wagons. These are, as I have noted, the
selfsame steerage classes that makes it so difficult to sell first
class tickets aboard the S.S. Conservatism.

For his efforts I am told Mr. Limbaugh is somehow exceedingly well
compensated. Certainly, as a conservative, I shan't begrudge a man
making a good living, even those among the GOP's nouveaux riches.
Where I draw the line is when he uses his money to purchase the estate
adjoining Meticula, my family's ancient winter manor in Palm Beach.
Last year when I arrived for my annual January-March constitutional I
was stunned to discover Mr.Limbaugh as my new neighbor. Literally
stunned, as I was unceremoniously beaned by an errant ball from his
private golf course as I was supervising the tent arrangements for an
evening party in the gardens. Limbaugh had the minimum graces to drive
his cart to the fence and offer an apology, but the sight of the obese
cigar-puffing harlequin, clad in those garish chartreuse plaid plus
fours and tam o'shanter, compelled that I muster an entire lifetime of
good breeding to accept it. It should come as no surprise that I
summoned my property manager the next morning and ordered him to put
Meticula up for sale. It was a difficult decision, what with all the
Bernard Madoff unpleasantness that so afflicted the Palm Beach real
estate market and social calendar last year. For the life of me I
can't understand why Mr. Madoff is known as the "shame of Palm Beach"
while Mr. Limbaugh still maintains an address in that once-exclusive
village. Say what you will about the embattled financier Madoff, but
at least he had the good taste to inhabit only the better Democratic
clubs and progressive social circles. In any event, after 116 years in
Van Voorhees hands, Meticula has passed on to new ownership. I took
quite a financial bath in the bargain but it was worth it to escape
further exposure to Limbaugh. It was also useful in shoring up a few
recent liquidity problems in several of my trusts.

Alas, as a leader in the thinking wing of the GOP it has proven
impossible to completely avoid the predations of Mr. Limbaugh and his
slack jawed minions. Each day he rounds up a fresh wave of uncultured
baboons to the Republican cause, like some anti-intellectual Pied
Piper, making it harder and harder to reposition the party as an
upscale boutique brand. Our progressive competitors continue to pummel
us with accusations that Mr. Limbaugh is the presumptive leader of the
party; a charge, I might add, that he has been slow to deny. In fact,
during the recent CPAC meetings in Washington I watched on in abject
horror as Limbaugh held sway at the podium with a barrage of
anti-government invective, even repeating his shocking -- and
embarrassing -- imprecations against the success of Mr. Obama. More
shocking was the response of the audience, who as one hooted and
screeched their primate approval. One supposes the speech might have
been a delayed side effect of his painkiller addiction, but what, dear
God, accounts for the reaction of the mob? I shall leave this enigma
to greater minds than my own. We in the intellectual wing were left
only to clean up his mess, but even this charitable act resulted in
greater indignities; I read now that RNC chairman Michael Steele was
forced into a groveling apology for making the plain observation that
Mr. Limbaugh is reviled and despised by all right-thinking
conservatives. Despite our efforts the Limbauvian tumor seems only to
have metastasized, erupting as it did in the unsightly "tea party"
revolts which tormented the public squares last weekend. It has all
become, at last, far too much to countenance. Before we can steer the
S.S. Conservatism back to port I daresay we must now take leave of the
binnacle and force Limbaugh and the rest of the mutinous cretins back
to the orlop deck where they belong. At swordpoint, if necessary.

As I explained all this to President Obama, I assured him that there
are still many conservatives like us who patriotically wish him every
success, no matter what policies he has in mind. After extinguishing
his Marlboro he paused for a few moments, nodded, and assured me that
he would dispatch his staff and allies in the press to deal with the
Limbaugh problem, thereby clearing the Council of Nassau to forge a
new, improved, more fashionable Republican party.

In that instant my faith in Mr. Obama's innate conservatism was
reborn, for his offer of bipartisan kindness was a manifest sign that
he only has our best interests at heart. Yes, I know there remain some
conservatives of the better sort who have been shaken by the recent
distressing market turns as our gallant young admiral struggles to
find his sea legs and a coherent bank nationalization strategy. I
confess to such quiet misgivings myself, which I brought up in our
conversation. In response the President assured me that he would keep
my portfolio in mind in the next round of corporate bailouts. Let us
conservatives take comfort in that assurance, and in the fact that no
matter what new taxes he proposes, Mr. Obama has at least assembled a
cabinet with no personal enthusiasm for paying them. We must maintain
our faith that the President's inner conservative will eventually
emerge, and remain firm in the conviction that He works in mysterious
ways.

But, should the markets continue their unfortunate slide, I still have
my trusty heirloom sextant. The staff at Sotheby's remains confident
it will still command a pretty penny at auction!


On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 9:17 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> A little late.
>
> Where were the Catholic Church and economic "centrists" during the
> campaign and election?
>
> Freedom is not really that hard to regain if you have the people behind you.
>
> Either the Catholic Church thought it had a deal with Obama, or it saw
> this coming and wanted an excuse to close its money-losing hospitals,
> just as it has been closing schools all over the place, having nothing
> to do with Obama or Freedom or anything else.
>
> Catholic hospitals also have a tradition of ignoring DNR stipulations
> made by patients.
>
> Let the Obamatons have their way for a while.  See where it leads them.
> I think people will soon tire of it.
>
> B.
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
>> I generally stay away from debates on abortion. Like most people, I
>> have a personal opinion and will remain private.  Roe v Wade was bad
>> law in my opinion because it should have been settled by the states,
>> not by the courts, but that's just another opinion.  It has been on
>> the books for years and if turned back to the states, little would
>> change but perhaps in Utah and a handful of other states. But that is
>> not the point.  The point I want to make is this;  the Free-Choice
>> advocates are anything but about freedom or choice.  They want to
>> force their will upon others and may very well get their way.  Private
>> hospitals and doctors could be forced by law to perform services they
>> find unconscionable. Here's an article from a St. Louis website about
>> the dilemma Catholic hospitals are facing -
>>
>> http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/religion/story/E6E47067257DB95E862575710014DD57?OpenDocument
>>
>> Great nations seldom fail from external attacks, they generally
>> collapse from within.  We are seeing freedoms of all kinds, freedoms
>> earned by blood and sacrifice, under attack from every direction.  The
>> freedom to vote for a union in the privacy of your home, away from
>> intimidation and threat, is one. Participating in an act that you
>> perhaps find morally reprehensible is another.  The list goes on.
>>
>> On a second issue, we're on the precipice of losing our economic
>> freedom for a decade, perhaps forever.
>>
>> http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/or_20090307_2566.php
>>
>> We are beyond the point of liberal versus conservative, Republican
>> versus Democrat.  The choice before us is whether we keep alive the
>> American tradition of debate, reason, and compromise, or trade it for
>> a huge bureaucracy with the power to manage your affairs down to the
>> smallest detail.  We can't afford to wait until 2010 - the time for
>> action is now.  Write your Democratic Senators and Congressmen.  Ask
>> them to slow this process down.  Fix the fundamentals of the financial
>> markets first, then tackle the longer term issues in a thoughtful
>> manner.  Our way of life as we know it is under assault.  Freedom once
>> lost is almost impossible to regain.
>>
>> Brad
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>>
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